


Monsters Redux

by Egon



Series: We Are Monsters [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Exploitation, Fontcest, Incest, Innocence, Innocent Papyrus, Jealous Papyrus, Jealousy, M/M, Masturbation, POV Papyrus, Papyrus working out his feelings, Papyrus's unique and beautiful brain, Pedophiliac Undertones, Puberty, Sibling Incest, Young Papyrus, entering into adulthood, implied Sans/Grillby, lecherous Sans, renegotiating relationships and boundaries, teenage Papyrus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 09:25:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5780446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Egon/pseuds/Egon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Papyrus reflects on his relationship with his brother and what it means to love him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monsters Redux

**Author's Note:**

> Written January 1, 2016 when good monsters were enjoying their breakfasts.

You love your brother.

He doesn’t much act like a brother, and he never really has, but you think that is some effect of the gap between you. Sans, after all, raised you. You had no one else, just him, just each other. You remember the way he would try to keep you busy with puzzle books, have you sit tucked away under the countertop in a dark and comfortable little fort of pillows and curtains and condiments while he worked for such a long time. He sat on a stool, and his legs would swing a bit, carefree. And you used to play ‘ghost’ with him and touch his legs and pretend you weren’t there.

Also, you know that he’d bathe you in a big stew-pot, before you had a bath. It was not so cramped at the start, and he would be very careful with your face, wash it with a wash cloth as tenderly as possible. Two sweeps for the inner orbit of each eye, and thorough attention to your leaky nose. Then a tooth-brushing for extra attention with the toothpaste that was purported to taste like bubble gum but didn’t really but was your favourite anyway. Nowadays, you’re less grubby, or you’d like to think that you’re less grubby, and he bathes you once every three days, and you have to take his hand and interrupt him and insist some nights, because he is probably tired or probably has forgotten. His hands shake when he helps you out of your clothes and you have to hand him the wash-cloth insistently before he starts in, so bright blue that you wonder if he isn’t using his magic on himself in some way.

He was always very proud of you, and you know that. He didn’t hide you away because he was ashamed of you, but because you were special to him. And, of course, because you did not yet have a nice home to live in, with two bedrooms and a kitchen that had ‘remodel’ written all over it, and bad 70s shag carpeting, and floorboards that creaked in a really lovely way. For a small period of time, you did not have a place to live at all. So of course, you really had to come everywhere with him. You don’t think he knows you remember a time before that house, with its perpetual Christmas lights that you had him put up and then neither of you ever really took down. You remember a very dark place and whisper flowers, and one time they all said ‘Stay here.’ ‘I’ll be right back.’ ‘Please don’t wander away.’ ‘Don’t get lost.’ ‘I love you.’

I love you.

He doesn’t say that very often. Mostly he says other things. You think he might be shy about that word. It’s like the puzzle books. You see, the way it works is that one word can have the letter that another word might need. They are at intersections. The ‘L’ for ‘Love’ could be used for another word. Maybe if he used that word, he’d have to start considering the blank spaces. The crossroads. It’s okay to be scared of those crossroads. They are pretty daunting. But you are also pretty good with puzzle books. You see, they’re not just empty spaces. They come with hints. A number corresponds to the blank spaces, and the limited number of letters allowed to make that word fit. It means that each blank has just one word that can fit it, determined ahead of time. You can’t put in words that don’t belong. There’s another ‘L’ word that deserves to be there, that’s destined to be there. It just has to be, sort of, filled in?

Your brother is loud. When it is late at night, you hear him making noises like crying, but when you went to check on him once, he was not crying. He pushed you out of his room and closed the door on you with his magic, one sweeping gesture without leaving the bed. He’s never done that before. His room was always open to you, and you often went in and curled up in his bed after a bad dream. You remember that he was warm, and he wore an old t-shirt from that bar that was very soft from years of wash and use, and large on him so it covered the tops of his thigh bones, and he would cradle you close. But when you went to check on him, he had his hand in his ribcage and so much was blue, bright glowing blue— his chest, his fingers, his sheets, some spots or smears on his pillow.

That’s how you know your brother can’t be sad. People tell you that he is sad and you should be gentle with him, but when you touched your heart like he did, it only felt very good. And he taught you about it without having to show you. You would never have known it could feel good to do that, or that it wanted to be touched, but now you know what it all feels like, you want to do it all the time. You don’t do it every night. You just wait through some nights entirely, and other nights, you wait until he starts to make noises, because then you know he won’t be bothering you about it, won’t come in, won’t tell you that it’s wrong, won’t get mad at you like how he got mad when you intruded on him. And maybe this is a personal and private thing, but sometimes you think you want him to walk in, because he could probably show you more. You like his noises, and you like thinking about him and thinking about him touching you, and you like clutching at your heart and pretending it is him.

But he is not in the house much; he’s always working now, and at Grillby’s bar. People have told you. They said mean things about him that couldn’t possibly be true, and you picked them up and threw them with your orange light so they would stop saying those bad, hurtful, untrue things. Some of them are true. You do find him sleeping in the bar a couple times, and you don’t like the look that man gives you, like he’s appraising you, or the two of you together. And it’s not for him to look, or to think about, or to care about; these things are for you, and these things are private and special, and if other people knew about it, it wouldn’t be special. You have to hide these things away in the dark cave of your chestso that they stay special. The things they say about Sans and that man, though, that they were kissing— it can’t be true at all. He would never kiss anyone else. Those kisses are for you. The thought of him with someone else, or kissing someone else, or bringing someone else into the house to live with you makes your whole chest ache. It is horror, it is sadness, it is some kind of claim of ownership over him— and you do not own Sans, you cannot own Sans, but you do not ever want him to be with anyone else. This is how you come to dislike that man without ever really talking to him, even if he learns your number and calls you and gets you to take your brother home. Because Sans should never have gone to Grillby’s in the first place, not when you are around! Not when you can make him feel better! You just wish you knew how.

Sans does not really act much like a brother. You’re not sure how to categorize it, because he was a bit like a dad or an uncle before, when you were small and could not do things for yourself. But now that you are taller and older, and he is slower and more thoughtful, things are very different. You think, or you would like to think, that it feels a bit more ‘equal’. Maybe you can’t do the same things together when you were smaller and he acted like a dad. Maybe you are growing out of it, or maybe doing those things makes him think of you as a small child. It’s all you know of intimacy, but you want to figure it out with him. You’re so eager for the new, but you’re scared of it too, if things are different in a bad way as well, or if being an adult or doing adult things isn’t as sweet. He’s stopped taking you around to work with him, but sometimes you think about being under the countertop while he works, playing ‘ghost’ again, your too-tall body crammed into that little space, touching his legs and giggling while he just gets more flustered and anxious— and then what? Then what? What would he do? What would you do? You think about dancing with him in fancy formal attire and everyone whispering about how good the pair of you are, and how right it is that you should be dancing together. Sometimes you think about him bathing you, but it’s different, he’s not wiping dirt off your face and using the little scrub-brush on your fingertips, but pulling his clothing off and slipping in to the water beside you and holding you. And you want to ask why he doesn’t share a bath, but you don’t want to lose the last little bit of what made him bathing you special, although it seems a bit fuzzy now as to why you shouldn’t and can’t, and why you want to. You also think about following him to that place, that bar, and sitting beside him, and ordering something, very casual, very normal, but very adult— and everyone would see you as an adult and treat you as an adult, treat you like you belonged, and maybe it would be….. maybe it would be like… you know…. a…… a date.

If that’s what he would….. want. You would never do anything that he wouldn’t want. It just makes you so anxious trying to figure out if what you want and what he wants is the same thing. He’s not good at telling you things. He’s not good at talking to you. He never really has been. He just gets warm and blue and mumbles something, and you love that blue, and blue is the colour of your dreams and the colour you see when your hand grips around your heart, practiced and true.

You wonder if you should make noises, in the night. If maybe that’s a signal. Maybe you are scared of it. Maybe because you don’t know how he’ll react. Maybe because it means that you’re growing up, and you don’t want to grow up that much, but you sort of have to any way, despite everything, despite trying so hard to keep the nice things and all of this.

You love that blue so much that you crouch in the snow and have him teach it to you, have him turn your orange into blue, blue that can’t hurt anyone, blue that can only love in so many ways. In those early weeks, when his hand was blue, and yours was orange, and when he was trying to coax your magic into new shapes, the way they touched together made you feel so queasy and good, and his whole face would light up that glorious and beautiful colour, and he’d breathe so hard and press close into your back to ‘guide’ you. That was when you felt his heart against you for the first time that way, and you wanted that warmth to burn you up inside and out. You wanted to press back into him, but you didn’t know if it would make him back away, so that alone was good.

Maybe he doesn’t see it, or maybe he is scared of seeing it. It’s like the puzzle books. You see, the way it works is that there is a word hidden amidst a lot of other words and nonsense letters all in a jumble. You have to search for that word. You have to dig it out of the other words and highlight it or circle it and distinguish it from everything else. You take a mess of confusion and you make one thing very clear. Maybe he is scared of searching. Maybe, if he tries, he can’t take it back. Because it’s already there for everyone to see, and even if you erased those lines you’d know where it was. And you can’t ever really forget it. But you have that puzzle in front of you, and you’ve already found ‘father’ and ‘brother’ and ‘friend’ on there, and there are still words left to find.

Here is the other thing about word-search puzzles like that. There is a list of the words you are supposed to find in there. Which means those words are there and hidden. They are predestined. All word-searches have different words. Some of them have the same words, but not all the same words, just a couple. But those words are there. They are hidden. The only way they don’t get found is if you don’t search for them. If you don’t find them. If you just don’t look at all. But you cannot deny the words at the bottom, the words that could be found, if you tried. Your heart has thrilled with thoughts of those words, and you are searching so desperately. As soon as you thought it could be, you knew the word was there, you knew the potential existed. And you can’t stop thinking about it now.

You think about those echo flowers: ‘I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you—‘

You think about maybe putting the washcloth in his hand and telling him to come and bathe with you.

You think about hiding under the countertop and dragging him in to that dark and warm and safe place.

You think about going in to the bar with him and that man not looking at either of you like anything was out of the ordinary at all.

You think about dancing.

You think about the way he came around you, arms steadying yours, his chest pressed into your back, the colour of your magics seeping together and feeling so very good.

You think about seeing him in his room, one arm covering his eyes, the other deep in his ribcage, and that strong blue glow you love so very much.

You don’t want to grow up, but you will be an adult soon, and maybe he will look at you differently. Maybe he already is. Maybe he is just scared, and he needs you to not be scared. And you can be strong for him, you can be whatever he needs you to be.

You want this so much. You just aren’t sure you can name it yet.


End file.
